Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner is ready to leap from the edge of space, 23 miles above earth.

The 43-year-old former military parachutist from Austria planned to take off in a 55-story, ultra-thin and easy-to-tear helium balloon that would take him into the stratosphere for a jump .

On 15 March 2012 Baumgartner completed the first of two test jumps from 71,581 feet (21,818 m). During the jump he spent approximately three minutes and 43 seconds in free fall, reaching speeds of more than 360 miles per hour (580 km/h), before opening his parachute. In total, the jump lasted approximately eight minutes and eight seconds and Baumgartner became only the third person to safely parachute from a height of over 13.5 miles (21.7 km)

Watch below one of the test jumps of Felix Baumgartner.

If the mission goes, Baumgartner will make a nearly three-hour ascent to 120,000 feet, then take a bunny-style hop from a pressurized capsule into a near-vacuum where there is barely any oxygen to begin what is expected to be the fastest, farthest free fall from the highest-ever manned balloon.

Watch the below video which shows the simulation of this mission by giving various details such as altitude, speed, temperature and pressure in various phases such as Launch, Ascent, the jump, stratosphere, descent and Landing..

When he jumps, Baumgartnerwill accelerate from zero to 690 miles per hour in 35 seconds, and become supersonic for almost a minute of the roughly 10-minute leap. This feat could ordinarily only be accomplished by a supersonic jet.. But the 43-year-old Felix Baumgartner believes he can do it using only his body.

"We are using a helium balloon to get to the stratosphere, but to get there we have to transit the death zone," Jonathan Clark Stratos, the project's medical director, said.

Baumgartner said he wasn't doing this just to set a record. He's also doing it for science, as the jump could help NASA design better and stronger spacesuits for astronauts.

Watch below the Live of this mission.

If this mission succeeds, Felix Baumgartner will set several records, such as,

• First Human to break the speed of sound in free-fall (Mach 1 more than 690 mph)

• Largest manned balloon in history at 550 feet tall, with a volume of 30 million cubic feet

Among the risks: Any contact with the capsule on his exit could tear the pressurized suit. A rip could expose him to a lack of oxygen and temperatures as low as 70 degrees below zero. It could cause potentially lethal bubbles to form in his bodily fluids, a condition known as "boiling blood."

He could also spin out of control, causing other risky problems.

The energy drink maker Red Bull, which is sponsoring the feat, has been promoting a live Internet stream of the event at from nearly 30 cameras on the capsule, the ground and a helicopter.

About Felix Baumgartner

Felix Baumgartner was born on 20 April 1969 in Salzburg, Austria.

Felix Baumgartner is renowned for the particularly dangerous nature of the stunts he has performed during his career. Baumgartner spent time in the Austrian military where he practiced parachute jumping, including training to land on small target zones.

In 1999 he claimed the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building when he jumped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

On 31 July 2003, Baumgartner became the first person to skydive across the English Channel using a specially made carbon fiber wing